


Friendship (And Beyond)

by SegaBarrett



Category: Chess - Rice/Ulvaeus/Andersson
Genre: Ex Sex, F/M, Future Fic, Getting Back Together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-05
Updated: 2017-09-05
Packaged: 2018-12-24 03:58:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12004521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SegaBarrett/pseuds/SegaBarrett
Summary: Florence runs into a familiar face, several years later.





	Friendship (And Beyond)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sonicshambles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonicshambles/gifts).



> Disclaimer: I don't own Chess, and I make no money from this.
> 
> A/N: I saw your request and was inspired. I hope this does... something :)

Rickety old, falling apart building. Florence has already wondered three times today what she was thinking exactly when she decided to take the jump into real estate.

Not her best moment, maybe. But a good way to put down roots – she’s been moving around her whole life and to pin her feet to the floor has been a challenge. But she’s forty now, and at a certain point she needs to sit down and rest. 

This building contains three bail bonds places, two counseling agencies, a music therapist, three lawyers and a driving school. It’s quite eclectic.

She pushes through the front door and makes her way down the hall and then up the stairs. The bail bonds people have not yet come in for the day, and the counseling agency on the bottom floor already has its noisemakers going at full-blast. 

At the top of the staircase is the second counseling agency, with a generic name that gives little indication of whatever must actually go on there.  
She had considered counseling when she was younger, but there had never been time. Who has weeks to toil over being an orphan (or not quite) when you’re traveling the world? And now, what would be the point? 

Somebody breezed past her, nearly knocking her over.

“Excuse me,” Florence said with a grumble, following them into the waiting room. There was nothing wrong with common courtesy, and she was really owed an apology. The young man who had nearly knocked her over was standing in front of the window. “Excuse me!” she said again. “You can’t just knock people over and then just keep running along like nothing happened! What’s wrong with you?”

“Sorry lady,” the man replied, looking a little bit shell-shocked.

She heard a chuckle behind her. When she turned her head, she was sure her jaw almost dropped a little bit.

He was a few years older, of course, and showed it – brown hair beginning to thin a little, and thin frame beginning to fill out. But he was unmistakable, if not only to Florence, then to anyone who followed the chess circuit in the late 70’s and early 80’s.

“Freddie,” she whispered. 

He waved, flashing her a cheeky grin.

“Florence.” He stepped over to her and, before she could react, pulled her into an awkward and slightly crushing hug. “What are you doing here? What’d you do?”

“What do you mean, what did I do, Freddie? I bought this building.” Florence paused as he let go of her. “What did you do?”

Freddie grinned again, a little too wide this time.

“I may have crashed my car. Just a little.”

“Just a little? What does that mean, now?”

“…I perhaps took out a fire hydrant and part of a jewelry store.”

“Freddie!”

“It wasn’t on purpose. I was a little drunk.” He brushed his collar and shrugged. “So now I have to go to this thing for four months of group therapy fun.”

“I always did try to get you to go to therapy, Freddie. Maybe it will do you some good.”

“Nobody can analyze me. Nobody should try.”

Florence smiled, despite herself.

“I’d ask you out for a drink, but…”

Freddie chuckled.

“Maybe not a drink. But we should get together. Catch up?” Freddie sounded hopeful in a way that cut Florence’s heart to the quick. It had been too many years – her pulse shouldn’t beat like this when she saw him, she shouldn’t feel faint when she heard his voice. It was all wrong, wrong, wrong.

“Dinner, then?” Florence suggested. 

“Sure. Group’s out at 8:30. Shall we meet at nine? You’ll need to pick me up.”

Florence sighed.

“I’ll be there.”

***

Freddie climbed into the passenger seat of Florence’s car as if this was a usual occurrence, as if she was picking him up from school or work. 

As if they had been, once upon a time, a normal couple.

A couple? Was that what they had even been? If so, why was it all so hard to define, and if no, then why did this feel oddly normal, like flipping open a book she’d misplaced for years but had always felt comfort in reading?

It was in those incidental touches and the way they came floating back, as if by accident – when at last they made it to a Mexican restaurant on the other side of town, their hands grazed each other as they picked up their menus and seemed to stay there, lingering.

“So other than crashing your car,” Florence said a moment later, “What have you been up to these past few years?”

“Oh, a little bit of this, a little bit of that. I taught a class a year or two ago for some kids who wanted to learn Chess. In Boston.”

“You? With kids? How old?”

“Nine or so.”

“You must have mellowed a bit, then.”

“I don’t mellow,” Freddie said, offended. “I just get better, as in fine wine.”

“Or vodka?” Florence teased, and Freddie made a face that was somewhere between a scowl and a pout. 

“Anyway. I did my class and then I came back here. What about you? England not working out for you these days? Too much tea?”

“That was certainly it, Freddie. Couldn’t stand the tea in the slightest. No… Just… needed a change, after…” She let it hang in the air for a moment before barreling onwards. “I’ve just been… I had a few little things. Did some journalist work, actually.”

“Journalism? You? You hated those vultures.”

“You were one of those vultures, last I checked.”

Freddie smirked.

“The money was excellent, though.” He picked up his fork and tapped it against his table, shaking as he did.

“Nervous… or the DTs?” Florence asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Nah… It’s been a while. Just… Nervous. I mean… It’s you.”

Florence found herself blushing, and she reached out to touch Freddie’s hand again. 

“You’re right. It’s me. So no need to be nervous.” Then it was her turn to be nervous, swallowing hard and wondering if she had gotten it all wrong, if too much time had gone past. There was only one way of knowing.

She leaned in, letting her lips brush against him. Gentle, careful – she hadn’t lied when she had told Freddie she was always gentle with him. 

She felt one hand go up in shock and then thread through her hair, deepening the kiss for just a moment before slowly breaking apart.

“I missed you,” she told him. “I missed you…”

There weren’t words for it. 

“We’d better order,” Freddie told her. 

***

Freddie’s heart was beating so hard against her ear that Florence nearly grabbed him to steady him, to calm him.

“You’d better not leave again,” he was saying as she lowered herself back over him, letting him slip back inside her and kissing the curve of his collarbone. “You’d better not, Florence. I can’t… if you leave…”

“Shhh,” she whispered back. As much as Freddie had changed, he remained the same. “I’m not going anywhere tonight. Tomorrow, we’ll talk about.” She grabbed his hair in her hands and dragged her fingers through it. 

“God, grant me the serenity…” he teased, his eyes following hers as she ran her hand down his chest. He was so warm, always so warm. Easy to get burned, sometimes, to be on the other end of one of his tirades.

She wondered who the hell had finally succeeded in getting Freddie Trumper into therapy. She let her hand drift down to rest on his stomach as she rode him once more, before dropping to his side and curling up beside him.

“Good night, Florence.”

“Good night, Freddie Trumper.” She propped her head up on her elbow and watched him sleep. She was back in it, all over again. And that was going to have to be okay.


End file.
